If from some cause it may be advisable to prescribe by enumeration, on the plan already suggested, the above form may be used. The blank of the form should be printed, the one given by way of illustration is filled out.

By making a careful estimate of the forces specified, we secure a record of the progress of the case, aside of gaining other advantages. With each the scale runs from 1 to 100, as has been represented in therapeutics. The therapeutic force here has reference to the combined remedies in the prescription. What is understood by a pathological force is the extent, stage and violence of the disease with its constitutional effects. The more formidable the disease, the higher the number. One hundred would make the case moribund. In the physiological force the scale takes the reverse order. One hundred is to indicate a perfect state of health, but a less number may not always affect the pathological scale as in the case of an ephemeral constitutional disturbance, where the recuperative forces have not been materially impaired. In the psycological force we rate the temper of the mind in the following manner: From 1 to 10 is included the different stages of lunacy; from 10 to 30, despondency, hysteria, hypochondriasis, delirium, feebleness of mind, abnormal hilarity, etc. From 30 to 80 the state of a normal mind influenced directly by the existing disease. From 80 to 100, where the mind is little or not at all influenced by the disease but characterized by hopefulness, cheerfulness, patience, and other manifestations of an active healthy mind. A disturbed intellect is strictly symptomatic, and although not a disease per se, an estimate is made on it, mainly as an etiological element. The effects of nostalgia in conjuntion with any disease will forcibly illustrate the importance of a psycological rating.

It is self-evident, in making an estimate of these forces, that in many cases the calculation may be somewhat complex and can only be made in a proximate way. But notwithstanding this difficulty, still, by doing the best that can be done under existing circumstances, the results may prove advantageous.

It would also serve as a reliable memorandum to note the effects of treatment.

One of the main objects in prescribing under this system is to confine the nature of the remedies to the dispensing druggist, and not to the patient. It is often the case that the patient should be ignorant of the character of the disease he is laboring under, and it might be still more advisable he should know nothing of the nature of the remedies he is taking. It might appear strange to state that physicians themselves, when dangerously ill, should take their medicines from the hands of their attending physicians without questioning. The writer, once, in passing through a dangerous illness, (ship-fever, contracted from a patient,) earnestly requested of his physician in whom he had great confidence, not to reveal to him the names of the remedies he was to administer to him through his illness. It was to guard the mind from all anxiety and vexatious speculation of the medical treatment. The mind kept free from all care and anxiety, in sickness, is a factor in effecting a cure of the greatest importance.

Another advantage of prescribing by this plan is that the physician conveys to his druggist a true condition of his patient, from which several favorable results may follow; but the most important, is the giving the therapeutic force, the druggist may find in the prescription. Should the druggist see in it an extraordinary high therapeutic force, where the physician through some oversight made it very low, it would be evident to him that there is a grave mistake in the prescription, which should be corrected.

In it, too, we may find a ready method to suggest, when requested to do so, a medical treatment to the patient of another physician.

Another object in prescribing by enumeration is to do away with that vexed questiou of the ownership of a prescription. Under this arrangement it virtually remains in the hands of the physician, often with no inconsiderable commercial advantage.

In this, however, the patient is not helplessly bound to the services of one physician. If a change of physicians should be deemed advisable by him or his friends, without resort to a consultation, the prescriptons in his hands submitted to his attending physician might be of great benefit, as they would, in a measure, give a history of the case and treatment. It is well for a physician to be just and true to himself, but he should not lose sight of an honest interest in the recovery of a patient in whose care he once had a hand in treatment.

It may hardly be necessary to state that the first number on the prescription usually makes a record of the diagnosis of the case.

To Druggists - In a prescription from this book, where a single remedy out of the therapeutic list is ordered, and no dose mentioned, the minimum dose as given is always intended to be administered three times a day; and when a fractional dose is prescribed (usually for children) the estimate is made from the minimum dose of the medicine.